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SARASOTA | The Harvey Milk Festival’s Fabulous Independent Film Festival (FIFF) will dazzle audiences with its eighth year Sept. 28-30.

“The Fabulous Independent Film Festival is definitely something the community needs,” Harvey Milk Festival President Shannon Fortner says. “We’ve had such great support. Magida Diouri, who founded and gifted it to the Harvey Milk Festival, continues to do its programming and does such a wonderful job.”

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Sarasota | The ninth annual Harvey Milk Festival, a three-day celebration of music and the arts, will return to Five Points Park May 10-12 to honor the life and legacy of activist Harvey Milk.

“This is a festival that is focused on raising awareness and sharing the life and legacy of Harvey Milk himself,” president and founder Shannon Fortner says, “but also creating a political platform for our community to come together and have a voice. It’s to inspire people to step up and to be heard.”

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness was never a chubby Ohio kid on vacation at Disney World.

At a ripe and round 13, my parents used the money they’d received after my dear grandmother’s passing to take me to the most magical place on earth. It was my first foray into Florida, and while I’d have gladly moved into the castle that day—it was transformed into a birthday cake for its 25th anniversary and I was chubby for a reason—I had no intention of moving here until a decade later.

This past weekend officially kicked off (at least for me) the summer season with the release of “Avengers: Infinity War” in theaters. No spoilers, I promise, but at the time of writing this I have seen the film three times and it may be the greatest movie ever made. From here on out until July—along with a few more weekends of blockbuster cinema—we have Fringe, Orlando’s Big Gay Weekend, Pride month and my birthday among the events to look forward to.

Since starting here at Watermark as an account manager for the sales department more than five years ago, I have developed quite a few traditions within the LGBTQ community.

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Fans of film and fans of the fabulous can rejoice, because the Fabulous Independent Film Festival (FIFF) is about to shante its way back to Sarasota.

The festival is a part of the annual Harvey Milk Festival, and as always, aims to connect the community through independent film. Now in its seventh year, the festival is currently scheduled to take over Burns Court Cinemas from October 6-8. Films are TBA, but you can stay up to date at fabulousiff.com.

SARASOTA – The Harvey Milk Festival opens its eighth season in Sarasota May 11 with a transgender media art exhibit inspired by a quote from the slain LGBTQ civil rights icon for whom the festival is named.

“Hope Will Never Be Silent,” Milk said after becoming the first openly gay person elected to public office when he was elected to the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors in 1978.

Film lovers in Sarasota will experience three days of LGBTQ cinema at Harvey Milk Festival’s sixth annual Fabulous Independent Film Festival, Sept.30-Oct. 2.

“Every single one of these films is so interesting in its own way,” Magida Diouri, festival programmer, says. “It’s remarkable. I really was looking for the best I could get for Sarasota – things that would not otherwise come here.”

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Proud of our Pride
The annual Pride parade and festival is a sign of, pardon the pun, pride for any city looking to advertise how accepting and diverse they are, but let’s face it: All Prides are not created equal. Next Magazine set out to explore the LGBT communities around the globe and find which Prides are worth traveling halfway around the world for. Next Magazine chose seven Pride destinations and only one in the good ole U.S.A. made the list: St. Pete Pride. The magazine calls it “a vibrant festival featuring art, music and performances of all kind.” They go on to say the highlights of St. Pete Pride include the “lively display that runs right through the heart of the gayborhood” that is Grand Central and gushes about the only parade on the list that starts at sunset. St. Pete Pride is forth on the list behind Tel Aviv, Israel;Sitges, Spain and Toronto, Canada.

Dinner with a cause
A restaurant, a group of friends and a bottle of wine spells out a pretty good night. A great night would be if you could do that and help out your community. Well you can! Dine Out For Life is headed to the Tampa Bay area May 19. Just eat at one of the participating restaurants, and a varying percentage of your check (The Frog Pond in Redington Beach is donating 100 percent)is donated to ASAP.This is the first year that local hot-spot eatery Punky’s will be involved and your friendly neighborhood news. People here at Watermark will be out there alongside them as your Punky’s Dine Out For Life welcoming crew. We can’t help it; we love that everything is purple! So make sure you make your way out to Punky’s, or any of the amazing places listed at DineOutForLIfe.com, and get to eating.

The Fifth Annual Fabulous Independent Film Festival in Sarasota at the Sarasota/Manatee University of South Florida campus is quickly approaching. From Friday September 18 through Sunday September 20, the event is being held at the Burns Court Cinema. The festival, which is a Broken Rules/Harvey Milk Festival Burns Court Cinemaco-production (with all proceeds going to the HMF) is an exemplary event that showcases LGBTQ art through cinema. There are six feature films and this year, the centerpiece film will be a free outdoor presentation on the Sarasota/Manatee campus in the courtyard with donation suggested.

Last year’s IFF went surprisingly well according to the IFF brainchild Magida Diori, who says there was steady attendance throughout the entire festival (rare, according to those who are familiar with the film-festival circuit). “Typically you have one or two films that outdo everything else,” Diori said. “And last year it was very even and pretty remarkable.”

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The Harvey Milk Festival is the recipient of a $5,000 grant, which will take a chunk out of the $40,000 required to put on the festival every year.

In its sixth year, the three-day festival honors Harvey Milk, his legacy, and awareness of any legislation important to the LGBT+ community, according to Shannon Fortner, Harvey Milk Festival founder and president.

“This year was like a $40,000 cesspool,” Sarasota’s Harvey Milk Festival President Shannon Fortner says, nearly two months after the festivities meant to honor the San Francisco (and global) legend of gay rights activism. This year’s party, featuring electro-pop emotion-driver Bright Light Bright Light (Rod Thomas), who recently opened for Elton John out west, was practically ruined by Florida’s fantastic flirtations with precipitation deluges. Though raw estimates of attendance were somewhere in the 2,000 to 5,000 range in its sixth year, inclement weather hindered the nonprofit from making up its financial losses, Fortner says.

“This is our sixth year and we’ve never had a rain problem,” she says. “And we already had our first protesters this year. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing … That, and the rain was a distraction.”

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Watermark is a multi-faceted media company using opportunities and innovations to communicate and advance LGBT interests, with a corporate emphasis on professionalism while building strong relationships with our readers, customers and community.

Watermark Media was founded by Tom Dyer in Orlando in 1994, and expanded to Tampa Bay in 1995. Dyer is an attorney, former board member of the Metropolitan Business Association and Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and current advisory board member of the Harvey Milk Foundation.

Watermark prints up to 20,000 copies every other Thursday, and distributes them in more than 500 locations throughout Orlando, Tampa Bay, Sarasota and throughout the state. The newspaper donates more than $200,000 annually in free and sponsor advertising to worthy local and national LGBT non-profits.

Watermarkonline.com was launched in 1999. The award-winning newspaper currently maintains offices in Tampa Bay and Orlando and employs a full-time staff of 12, along with several part-time and freelance contributors.

Watermark Publishing Group, founded by publisher Rick Claggett, purchased Watermark in January of 2016. Rick Claggett is a long-time employee of Watermark Media and former board member of both the Metropolitan Business Association and Come Out With Pride.Read More...